As The New York Times' Alex Burns adds: "There's a spiraling dynamic here: Many competent [Republicans] don't want to work in the [White House] for reasons including aversion to scandal, so they end up hiring staff that doesn't share that aversion, end up with more scandal, and have an even harder time hiring competent people than at the start."

The entire intel committee public hearing was kind of a shitshow for the GOP. It was by far and large the biggest event of the day, and it's nowhere on Fox News. They haven't figured out how to spin it yet, and it's been six or seven hours since the gavel adjourned everyone for lunch. Yikes.